ORIGIN OF LIFE IN THE OCEANS 123 



Thus organisms vitiate our results: they excrete into the 

 external inorganic medium, in quantity, substances resulting from 

 metabolism. They also absorb and ingest other substances in their 

 anabolic processes. Thus, they radically alter the course of the 

 chemical reactions in their environment. Therefore, we must learn 

 about the conversion of organic substances in the waters of the 

 earth's hydrosphere, chiefly through a comparison with the 

 phenomena observed under experimental conditions. A great many 

 investigations have shown how through a gradual polymerization 

 and condensation of organic substances protein-like substances, 

 such as polynucleotides, porphyrins and other complex organic 

 compounds abiogenetically in the waters of the primeval ocean. 

 I will only mention here the papers of Sh. Acabori, M. Grunberg- 

 Manago, and others published in the Proceedmgs of the Moscow 

 Symposium on the Origin of Life. 



Until recently, the viewpoint was widely held that life first arose 

 on the earth in the form of a single "living" molecule. This supposed 

 that a very complex molecule (i.e., a molecule of nucleoprotein or 

 nucleic acid) was somehow formed in the waters of the primeval 

 ocean. The inner structure of this molecule determined the vital 

 properties and in particular the ability of this first "living mole- 

 cule" to reproduce and propagate itself. This theory of the origin 

 of life was chiefly connected with Morgan's work on the nature of 

 the gene and with work on viruses. However, modern biochemical 

 knowledge ruled out the possibility that vital processes can develop 

 from a single molecule. Thus, the ability of a virus nucleoprotein 

 to reproduce is only possible because of its interaction with the 

 multimolecular complex of the protoplasm of say the tobacco plant 

 or of some other host. Those laws of thermodynamics and chemical 

 kinetics, which alone determined the course of the processes in the 

 waters of the primeval ocean, may explain the emergence of only 

 polypeptide or polynucleotide polymers in general and not that 

 of compounds with some established "life-determining" structure. 

 Therefore the emergence of such a structure Is usually considered 

 the result of a "happy accident" with a very small probability. 

 This certainly rules out the possibility of any experimental 

 approach to this problem together with its rational solution. 



Much more promising is the idea of open multimolecular 



